


Postmortem & Analysis: A Hand in Holding Hands

by SkaianRedeemer



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Other, Postmortem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkaianRedeemer/pseuds/SkaianRedeemer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I discuss the ups and downs of my completed-incomplete <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/330885">auspistice novel</a>: what worked, what didn't, why it crashed, where everybody went, a look at the characters and their voices, and finally, where I shunt in one last gratuitous Homestar Runner crossover gag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Postmortem & Analysis: General Factors

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Hand in Holding Hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/330885) by [SkaianRedeemer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkaianRedeemer/pseuds/SkaianRedeemer). 



First off I'd like to thank Karen one last time for her final chapter art, she was wonderful to work with and put forth a lot of great ideas in good time. Another visit to her [DA page](http://karen0dulay.deviantart.com/) is highly recommended!

.

* * *

.

So, all I have to do to make auspistice appealing as a relationship to a fandom that ignores it is to demonstrate its central appeal without cheapening either the central appeal or the relationship as a whole by, say, removing it from its context and consequences via an AU or an oversimplification. Well that's easy! The most appealing part of auspistice to me is that the other relationships rely on it and that without it all of Troll society would literally vaporize into a rainbow mist, so this should be simple to demonstrate. All I need to do is put the natural violence of the Trolls up against the natural tribalism of Humans and form a functional society based on the ties of an auspistice.

Great! I'll be home by dinner!

.

### Things That Worked

 **Truly Alien Trolls** : From the beginning, it's obvious that the audience's primary attraction to _Hands_ is, above all else, the alien nature of the Trolls. First there was the actual biological differences, then the levels of violence, and then the culture in general. There has been no more common and consistent a compliment toward the fic than to this one element and I owe it a great deal, especially to the fic's initial success. Unfortunately, this advantage did fade with time, and with it, the prominence of the physical differences.

To paraphrase a point from my [ascerbic self-Liveblog of the first draft](http://skaianreadsskaian.tumblr.com/post/32265948289/score-the-second-half-starts-with-new-moon-jokes), the tentabulge – the fandom's twisty, writhing go-to for Troll genitalia – was a watershed in the fandom's perception of the Trolls. Once it was introduced, no one really forgot the Trolls were alien again. Xenokink flourished and _Hands'_ Trolls going through a moult was simply blasé. Still, keeping the moult in the story allowed me to use it to accelerate other aspects of Troll culture, like the hyperviolence (the Trolls going more violent as the story goes on is supposed to be a symptom of puberty, starting with the three initial moulters attacking one another in the opening chapter and in CYQ). That in turn prevented the fic from becoming an oversimplification, so in the end I'd say things were pulled back from the fire.

From the physical side of our space aliens we go over to the social, and really, without this succeeding the fic itself would have collapsed. The unique challenges of an auspistice were, of course, the centre of the fic's intended appeal, but showcasing its appeal meant underlining the differences, and that meant throwing them at a Human. It's good to know it worked (based on audience feedback), because that means, on at least one level, the fic worked, and hopefully worked all the way to the end. It's good to know it brought in readers as well, which all-in-all makes it probably the most successful single element of the entire novel.

  


**Rarepairs:** If you had sat me down in December or January of 2010/1 and told me that I had absolutely no readers except for those there for Eritav, I would have believed you and bought you a coffee for doing all that market research. For a while, references to Eritav seemed like the only feedback. It was a great surprise to me that I did not lose a single tumblr follower – my only reliable remaining metric – once Eridan and Tavros were broken up, and I very nearly had Nepuppet make a joke about the expected drop but figured it wasn't worth pushing my luck. I don't know if everyone stayed out of respect for the fic itself or if I had simply scared away my entire original base over the course of years, it could have gone either way, but one way or another, it seems what brought people in was no longer required to keep them.

Eritav wasn't the only rarepair in the fic, of course. Or rare-er, at least. Erivris counts, even though they were actually canon. Daveradia, for another. Rosevris, Roseridan. I always wondered what would have happened if I had introduced Solnep earlier in the fic, but too late for that now. It is the great problem of fanfic curation: because the only way to search for fic is to search for characters and ships and character searches are too cluttered, the only way to be found by any readers is to have ships, and the easiest way to be found is to have popular ships or weird ships. The best fic in the world runs a massive risk of going noticed if it were shipless – though it's worth noting that at the time of writing, the most popular by hitcount fic at AO3 is [Unwanted Free Ugly Troll](http://archiveofourown.org/works/477092), which has a relationship but no relationship _tags_ , so kudos on its success in spite of the apparent "rules" of fanfiction popularity! But for my part, I have no doubt that rarepairs brought me in more hits than the common (even Rosemary), and so it has to be counted as a point of success even if it is just a lucky accident.

  


**Audience Re-Read and Reflection:** Spelled out in the Epilogue, the story has always been meant to be interpreted differently on a second read. This has been an element as early as the first draft's The Dargon Arc, where the children's message hid the obvious teen message (which in turn hid the less obvious adult message not so plainly spelled until the Epilogue). Despite its tie into the story's themes, this is more something I do constantly than a native element to the fic, trying to capture one of the primary advantages of game storytelling. Games allow you to see concepts from all angles, a three-dimensional sculpture of thoughts instead of a painting. Games allow you to explore those sculptures just as a matter of their natural flow, unless that flow is heavily constricted by too much railroading. In a medium with restricted narrative format, if I can't simulate a third dimension I can at least stack a few layers and hope to convince the reader to ping back and forth across old parts of the text through cross-references to learn what was hidden in the depths from the beginning. 

Sometimes I forwent cross-references and simply encouraged outright re-reads of old content. The use of secret strifes set _prior_ to the main events was one such functional trick, designed to encourage re-reads and re-absorption of the original content, doubly so because the player could now easily replay the main body of the flash after the much more difficult secret challenges!

While I can't say for sure if anyone will re-read the fic I do know that some have reconsidered past events, and that's all I can really ask for. It means they were interested, and that's all I can do.

  


**"My" Nepeta:** The longer I go into this fic the more upset I am with my portrayal of Andrew's characters. This is sort of odd, because I'm perfectly capable of portraying them in short bursts, especially in pesterlogs, but in the fic they've long since lost direction. The only character I think has succeeded on all notes is Nepeta… because she honestly stopped being Andrew's Nepeta ages ago. I have more to say about the characters after this plus and minus session, so I'll save the rest for there, but for the time being, I'll say that, if anyone, I'm glad to have written "My Neps" – she gives me faith in my own characters in the future.

:33 < and me!

No not you, you're a drag.

:SS

Yes, well.

  


**The Dargon Arc – mostly:** Speaking of original characters, time has given me more and more appreciation for the part of the fic that's more "mine" than the sections that owe more to Andrew's characters. It's true, I wish TDA could have better represented the Squiddles as portrayed in canon, but the canon representation has been pushed aside as part of the overwearied joke that this is a different season, so I suppose I don't mind so much in the end. With some heavy revisions, I think The Dargon Arc might have stood as one of the strongest points in the second draft, and it's a damn shame I never made it that far. I had hoped to, before I had to drop the fic, but no luck.

Of course, not everything about TDA has been bright. Most readers skipped it, I probably lost a good many during the hiatus created by trying to finish its original chapters, and it certainly gets me funny looks in Squiddles discussions since I'm one of those fans that appears to like something for reasons they just made up (I like to think that's not true as the canon Squiddles and Plumbthroat are one of my favourite parts of Homestuck, even if TDA doesn't reflect them). Worst of all, TDA led into a different fic, which I'd rather not talk about any more but certainly weights on me. Still, as I said during the commentary/flogging of The Fic That Must Not Be Named Again, "they will never leave." Berryboo, Squiddler, Squidette, Radar, Bump and Bella are _my_ characters and I'm more fond of them than I ever expected, and I'm fond of the fic's ending with Plumbthroat more than I expected to have been after all these months. For all the damage the little squirts may have done to my readership, they've left me a piece I feel I can be genuinely proud of in isolation, and that's worth more than any kudos count.

Plus I did a watch of ReBoot a few months ago and I fucking _nailed_ the approach.

  


**The Tale of the Lone Soldier:** Always a good response to the fable, I cannot complain, and if that went over well, that means people were prepared from very early on for how the Trolls would have faced Jack if they had been forced to do so alone. The fable sets the tone for the end of the fic long before the reader realizes what the end will even entail and so can't help but be seen as a net positive for the novel as a whole. This impression lasts through the Blaze and is contrasted with the Human's reaction when the time truly comes to face Jack, at the end of _Dawn's_ walkaround. From those launching points, the reader is prepared for the reaction of the fledgling society-to-come during the approach, and can try to predict their future from that scene alone (Original Draft) or through the gameplay. No, can't complain.

  


**Auspistice as Barometer** : This was originally in the next section, " **Indeterminate Factors** " as I'm not clear on the audience response, but I was having a little trouble explaining myself in the next section without first addressing this point, so I figured I would shift it around.

Simply put, auspistice is meant to serve throughout the fic as a barometer for the whole Troll/Human society, or perhaps a microcosm of the society as a whole. If the society is in trouble, the auspistices are in trouble, and if the auspistices are in trouble, it soon reverberates back to the others through the web of relationships. This was done to best illustrate their potential impact and so the appeal of auspistice in general. At the very centre of the web, our auspistices: first Rose, the auspistice and wobbly bond uniting Eridan, Vriska, and through them half the cast, held together with poor experience and poor success. On the other side we have Feferi, auspistice for Equius and Aradia and through them, connections to the other half of the cast. These roles put Feferi and Rose in the ideal positions to influence the current society and to influence the one that will emerge in years to come, of which Feferi is desperately aware.

Every relationship in _A Hand in Holding Hands_ is connected to the others, and most can be drawn, like the Symbol of Society, back to Rose or Feferi. The success of one relationship impacts another; the failure of one relationship impacts another still. A fic exploring the potential of auspistice, a relationship defined by its impact on another relationship, would be inherently flawed not to explore that very concept.

Long story short: the entire cast is impacted by auspistice, and you could (a little tactlessly) say they're all in two very large auspistices as every one of the relationships ultimately connects to one. This means the auspistices serve as a microcosm of the society as a whole.

  


**The Penultimate Arc** : Which is to say the buildup to the Blaze, the Blaze itself, and the approach to the Ending. Nepeta's "explosion to Equius," as my notes describe it, has been in the plans for the fic since some of the earliest outlines: at the latest it was in place when Nepeta first appeared in the fic in Chapter 4. But when the second draft was assembled, it was elevated to one of the most critical plot points. The structure of the fic took on the appearance of the Symbol, and with Nepeta's explosion at the little dot. Every plotline was headed to this point (except Gamzee's, which could have been better). This wasn't just a climax in the normal sense, it was the moment the story's form and purpose becomes truly clear.

Auspistice is held up throughout the fic as the central bond of Troll relationships, holding them together where they otherwise might fall. In that regard it is used throughout the fic as a barometer for the cohesion of the Trolls' and Humans' society as a whole: which is to say, Rose and Feferi's auspistices represent the status of the society as a whole. For me to succeed in my point and prove that auspistice was a relationship worth writing about, I had to stress test the entire society. I had to bring the members of the society to a point of conflict that had been formed entirely by _and because of_ the interconnections that existed thanks to the two auspistice relationships.

Unfortunately, this leads to what looks like a backfire. As the auspistices are a barometer for the society as a whole, that means the auspistices had to be in conflict or destroyed before the society even reached that point as a whole! This meant that I couldn't solve the problems with the auspistices directly, but instead had to rely on factors that had arisen _as a result of the effort the auspistices had exercised prior_. After some consideration, I realized that this worked wonderfully, as it allowed the problems to be solved in a platonic fashion better resembling auspistice as a whole, even though auspistice had no direct hand in the proceedings. Let me explain.

Every piece of ashen art I've ever seen, fan or canon, fic or visual, involves a violent intervention. The Claim Your Quarter moment. From Kanaya threatening to chainsaw Gamzee in canon to [invalidGriffin's wonderful fanart of the fic's central auspistice](http://invalidgriffin.tumblr.com/post/6401312298/songofthemidnightsun-invalidgriffin-c3-o). But I put CYQ in the first half of the fic, and never went back to it since. Why? Remember, the fic's original purpose is to show that auspistice is worth writing about, but judging by the art, fan perception is that auspistice is only worth writing or drawing about if there are ongoing physical battles, shouting. That is to say: there seems to be an impression that auspistice is only worth writing about _if it has a regular payoff equivalent to sex_.

Of course, auspistice isn't like that. It's preventative – it has to be or it won't work until it's too late! An auspistice with regular violent conflict is either a young one (like Rose's in CYQ) or a failing one (like Feferi's towards the end). Like the Trolls in the Blaze fail to understand and, for that matter, articulate, auspistice is like friendship: it ebbs below the line of outburst to instead provide a constant reinforcement.

To return to our issue of the Blaze: for the auspistices to be shown as succeeded in spite of the fact that they ended, I needed to have Rose and Feferi reinforce _prior_ to the Blaze, and have their influence carry through during the worst. This parallels Presence's lesson, which was to have faith that what you've built will stand and what you'll fix will hold stronger. Since I couldn’t use the central platonic romance for this purpose, I plucked up the other, if by "plucked up" you mean I spent a quarter of the fic building up to it.

Long story short, if there hadn't been a positive reaction to the Blaze itself – to the conflict that had built up during the entire fic – the whole ending would have tilted over and dropped the central premise to the ground in thundering ruin. To everyone who sent feedback or kudos about Chapter 46, I send all my thanks in return. You made it all worthwhile.

  


**Platonic Love as the Foundation of Society:** People have always responded well to the platonic relationships in the fic, which means a positive response to yet another central element. Platonic relationships define the story as a whole. Auspistice and Moirallegience represent the strong bonds of society, and Friendship the flexible. Most of the story's pivotal belong to the platonic relationships, either directly or indirectly. The sexual relationships do not have a true, plot-pivotal moment to match up with Rose challenging Vriska in the lab, the friends uniting to defeat the Underlings, or Rose and Terezi holding hands at the end of the world, nor should they. This is not their time: their time comes later. After all: auspistice is the relationship that fasciliatates the other three quadrants. The time for the sexual relationships is after the auspistice fic has come to an end.

  


**Fanfiction.net Cross-Postings:** FFn's cross-postings represented a fair portion of the readership. That said, it was always such a pain that I very nearly downgraded it to the next category just out of spite. At the time, I considered FFn's postings a failure, since they cost a lot of effort and did not garner many hits in the short run, but in the long run, when my readership has collapsed due to the faults to follow, the hits on FFn often add 50% to the hit count I get at AO3's at its lowest. That's not so bad, in the end. Though ultimately the inability to post commentary there was a cost.

.

### Indeterminate Factors

 **AO3 Move and Personal Thread:** My relationship with the fic itself changed after I moved it over to Archive of Our Own, and again when I moved out of the MSPA Fanfiction thread to my own. These moves represented an immediate divide from my readers compared to the original postings on the forums, but AO3 was where the fandom was going and creating a personal thread for the fic seemed like the natural fit at the time. Either way, feedback plunged, and for a long time, I felt both moves were a mistake. Still, looking back, this probably wasn't true. The fall in feedback for the fic does correspond to its various problems (below) but it also matches up with the fall of the MSPA Fanfiction thread in general, and so my original fan base. While the problems below are certainly responsible for severe lack of fans, my initial assumptions that the moves were responsible were probably unfounded, even if they were chaotic.

  


**Abandoning Non-Standard Auspistice** : So in Chapter 49, I said I would explain that one Tavros joke. Okay. So in the original draft – meaning the original-most, before edits were made later in 2011 – Tavros didn't ask Rose for relationship advice at the start of the fic. Instead, he originally asked her to be his and Eridan's "flushed auspistice." Readers protested. Auspistice is only for hate-relationships, they said! And while I protested for some time, I eventually came to agree with them. Indeed, it was one of my major reasons for restarting the fic. After all: how was anyone going to sit and think about the conclusion to the fic if the fic itself had misrepresented its central premise from start to finish?

But then Andrew had Karkat show up in canon and complain that he should have auspisticed between Rose and Kanaya, who are, as far as we can tell, still Red for one another. This means non-standard auspistices aren't just possible, but confirms the very one I had been trying to include! With the fic's old plans now confirmed as canon, my retreat in the other direction looks especially foolish. As a result, I feel I should explain how the fic would have worked if I hadn't changed things to make up for my retreat in some small way.

Throughout the original fic, there were going to be allusions to the differences between black auspistice, red auspistice and pale auspistice, and how Rose never really understood the nuances of each. She would have tried to understand as the fic went on, until the final arc came and Rose realised Vriska and Eridan no longer need her help to keep non-violent. The trouble is: in the original draft, Vriska and Eridan didn't become friends, they went _Red_ , and Rose got upset because she finally realized that her black auspistice was wildly different from the red auspistice Vriska and Eridan would have needed from then on, and that they would have to break up. It showed how much Rose had grown and come to understand some of the nuances of auspistice, even though it was to her cost. The current version shifts gears to make this seem like Eridan and Vriska have grown instead, but that seems a little redundant to me since Vriska and Eridan already have growth in the story: Vriska with Aradia, Eridan making up with Feferi, and Eridan getting over Tavros without murdering half the cast without so much as a moirail to check him. Judge for yourself.

  


**AO3's Stat-Tracking:** Useless! No per-chapter data, inconsistent relationship with unique hits that's changed at least once during the run of the fic. On top of this, because there's no link to jump to the most recent chapter, my attempts to track how many readers stay on after Chapter 1 have failed, because anyone wanting to go to Chapter 45 needs to first go to Chapter 1 just like a new reader!

This one is more of an "Indeterminate Factor" in that probably didn't hurt the fic, but if I had been able to find the proper information, I may have been able to fix something, and knowing that I couldn't is agitating!

  


**AO3's Work-Wide Kudos Switch:** When Kudos were introduced they were per-chapter and I had an idea of what people actually liked, and what they didn't! Within a month they had switched it to work-wide kudos and then I had no idea! Not. Happy! Still. Complaining. To! This! Day!

Kudos give someone the power to say what they like even in situations where they don't have anything particular to say in a full comment, and that's important, but it's useless to the writer if they don't know what they like in particular!

Okay, I'm done complaining about the site. At least they let me post my commentary here.

.

### Things That Didn't Work

 **The Rewrite:** I want to take a brief moment to thank everyone who voted on the fic's fate at the end of the first draft whether they voted one way or another. I appreciated and indeed needed your input at the time, and I don't doubt you picked what you felt was best for you and me at the time. But I've seen the hit counts, and I know I won't be alone in saying that in hindsight, writing the second draft was a mistake, perhaps one biggest mistake I made in the production of the fic.

At the time, everyone was supportive, but as the chapters went on – actually, scratch that, replace: "within two chapters" – the readership plunged. While I don't have the exact data points, readership eventually dove to an eighth of the fic's original high (data can be a little fuzzy, as for whatever reason people began to read the fic differently after a few chapters as well, reading several days after an update instead of on the day of. It seems that over time, about half the original base has returned. But at the same time, those might be the some readers making return trips to read the giant chapters, making any stat-taking an impossible task). I can't say for sure what happened, because over time, only the hardest core fanbase remained and I was not exactly swimming in complaints, even though there was clearly a problem. Perhaps they just didn't want to read the old chapters, perfectly understandable, or were put off by the update schedule, even better, or perhaps they didn't like my longer writing style as opposed to the quick.

I also attracted less new readers. While the above may apply to those, we can throw more things onto the pile for the new readers. It may also be possible that the giant wall of text looked less attractive with less obvious approval from existing readers in the form of its hit, comments, kudos and bookmarks count. Even in this post-mortem, a document designed to focus on these issues, I don't really have a conclusion I can draw, just to say that the readership dropped off after the rewrite and never picked up again. The word count I could have fixed – I was considering splitting the fic into "books" if I had reached the end of the act before having to drop the fic – but the rest… harder to say, with so little data on the nature of the problem.

Losing readership after the fic was _dropped_ is in no way surprising so I'm not going to talk about it. Maybe it's because I got used to the consistent numbers, but it feels like I've actually made more active readers since the drop than I did during the live second draft.

Even this loss of readership _might_ have been worth it if the rewrite had simply been better. Like _The Dargon Arc_ I would be able to look back on it with pride and feel confidence in my future endeavours. But it simply is not. Oh, the individual chapters are better than their partners, but as soon as I surrender the fic, it all slips downhill in a mudslide of crap, with cross-reference notes to the original draft, creating a work that is less fic and more "series of self-indulgent blog postings." Simply put: draft one tells more coherent story, and accomplishes more in a comparable word count. If I had caught up, even made it as far as CYQ, I think I would have been happy with the rewrite, but as it stands, if I had never done the rewrite I could have probably finished the entire fic, and that doesn't make me feel good at all.

  


**The Prototype:** While the rewrite was the single harshest blow against the fic's success, the real damage comes from the prototype. If I hadn't been working on the prototype, there would have never been any need for the rewrite since I would have had far more spare time, and wouldn't have been trying to create CYQ. More than a few readers seem to have agreed that CYQ was a mistake, because even though no one stepped up to say anything, it created the only drop in readership after the fic's proper end, and a considerable one. I can't say I blame them.

Indeed, the prototype can be blamed for issues in the first draft as well, as it caused a massive drop in update frequency. _Hands_ ' heyday is nominally the winter of 2010/1, after which I started working on the prototype and updates slipped from weekly to bi- or tri-weekly and worse. This was also when the Homestuck fandom exploded in both size and fanworks, and when tumblr became a prominent home for the fandom. New and more popular fanfic was up and updating with frequency. Who cared to remember the old fic that had long since sunk into obscurity? And I really have no one to blame but myself.

Furthermore the prototype was one of several elements in my life that have led to my current unemployment, unsuccessful career changes and worse, making it not only a failure to the fic but a failure _in and of itself._

That said, the Zodiac Engine is a solid piece of technology. If I were doing its own postmortem, I would have pages more **What Worked** , including learning to draw, the timed hit mechanics, the hit bar, the scripting engine, the camera engine… far more than **What Didn't.** But unfortunately, "What Didn't" work was me. I created a solid _example_ of technology, in three times the time I had planned to take to create a solid _finished and operable_ piece of technology, at the cost of my hobbies, free time and self-confidence, though the last could be considered a life lesson. The fact that it worked well has no bearing on its actual value. Ideas, as they say, are worthless. Execution is everything: and I've got a fic that's 75% nonexistent and an incomplete game engine. I could stop the post-mortem right here!

  


**Hyperviolence:** Early on, the audience made it clear that I was doing a shitty job at communicating that the Trolls were more violent than commonly portrayed, ala Terezi's explosion in what is now Chapter 4. Well shit. If you've read what I have in the positives, above, you know that this violence provides the setting of some of the fic's central elements. What did I do wrong? Well, despite multiple efforts, nothing I ever did seemed to correct Terezi's lashing out, first draft or second. Not even from my perspective. The Trolls simply weren't working when they were that violent. Again, the moult represents puberty and that always represents coming of age, and so the intended capper of this story was that the Trolls were going to become more and more predisposed to violence as the story went on, to give the humans a serious impression that they might not be able to live with them happily ever after. And remember: the moult triggering this was only the "penultimate" moult, meaning at least one more was going to follow, all of that building off of Hussie's hints of a hyperviolent Alternia and leading up to Foresight's Nightmare Future. By making Rose the auspistice for the two Trolls that were most physically adult, I was putting her at the spearhead of that inevitable problem.

When the Terezi chapter failed with the audience, it became necessary for me to lean all my weight my second accelerant: the fact that the Trolls did not have friendships (is it obvious now that the friendship thing was originally set up as a relationship the Trolls didn't have that the Humans did have to contrast with the three relationships the Humans didn't have but the Trolls _did?_ Okay, cool). I then put additional weight on the Hybrid issue as a backup, which became a thing after Hussie reminded the whole fandom that the cast could ecto-bio children instead of actually reproducing the whole population the old fashioned way. That said, you'll notice how rarely I mention the Hybrid issue: it's because it was shoved into the fic out of emergency when I realized the friendship issue wasn't covering all my bases and I never really got around to fitting it in properly (Vriska and Eridan and especially Tavros really don't have any reason to be against the friendship issue so I dangled the Hybrid issue in to agitate them).

The fact that the Hybrid problem takes place in the future meant I had to lean even further on Foresight's exposition, which means led to the next problem…

  


**Nyarlathotep:** So I come to the centipedial elephant in the room. 

Put quickly, the His Squishiness is my blunt instrument. Hindsight is there to spell out the problems in the cast's "sleep through it," strategy of integration and repopulation (as embodied in the vast library of post-game fanfiction now available at an internet near you), Foresight is there to spell out the long term problems and Presence is there to be horrible to people (she clearly isn't in on the plan, which is your first hint that she's an appendage, a tool). Over time, Hindsight's task of getting the cast to trip over their own lazy feet slipped her into the role of a Denizen, chastising its player for actively avoiding its own personal growth while still being forced to facilitate them, thus the "Cheaters" line (I was quite happy with our first canon visit to a Denizen, Yaldaboath, and his analysis of Caliborn's personality, as you can imagine). Unfortunately, over time, the role of the Horrorterror began to fall apart.

The collapse was a process that began ages ago, with the Horrorterror's first appearance in the first draft (the same chapter as Terezi's outburst), which is probably why I associate the HT so clearly with failure, as that chapter failed in its own right. Over time, other factors caused me to continue to lose faith in my ability to communicate my own story: poor presentation of hyperviolence, apparent misrepresentation of canon auspistice, poor character voices… In latter days, we have the poor reception of CYQ and the commentary being a poor format in general (the lecture the worst form of communication, etc etc).

As a result, I was at a low point when I hit the first Secret Strife, and it came time to have Hindsight hint at her purpose. And yes, even the commentary was influenced by the real world as I was writing it, it's not just a regurgitation of old notes. In the end, Hindsight's speech in the Secret Strife came out blunt where it should have been soft. Excess and inefficient dialogue in a video game is always a major fault, and the mental drafts for the three flash games was leaner than the nervous yammering I ultimately put online. As time and Secret Strifes went on, I began to communicate my ideas with less and less (and less, and less) subtlety and tact, especially when it came to the Triumvirate, until they were essentially saying what I had hoped the plot would have said on its own.

To explain this, it probably helps to outline the thought process that brought in the Horrorterrors in the first place. An auspistice has to prepare others for interacting with society. They cannot be with them at all times, and as established above, their role works best when they prevent future incidents. As a result, the person impacts the relationship, strengthening it and its members. This is a magnification of a person's role in any relationship (Ch7). But in a related fashion, relationships begin on the existing strengths of their members. Thus those that are already benefiting from strong relationships build further, stronger relationships and are strengthened in turn for their relationships in the future, and so on until death – at least at first glance.

At second glance, other members of those strong relationships will continue, stronger, after the end of the relationship, and so continue to strengthen, forming a society which outlasts its individual members. Like the relationships in macro (see "Auspistice as barometer," above), this society as an entity then impacts the relationships in that society as much as the relationships impact the society itself. Someone trying to strengthen the system, like Rose or Feferi, would thus have to have to aim to strengthen themselves and others as the system cannot be impacted directly, and would have to do so in such a way that recognizes that their personal impact will one day cease. 

The comparison is made to parenthood in the first secret strife, and reflected on the four Guardians, though this was simply transitional. I had to come up with a way to actually communicate the idea of interrelated relationships benefiting one another as being about society. Trying to put this into a form I could easily communicate, I came to a mental picture: a net of interconnected relationships jointed on the individuals in those relationships. There were also smaller cross-bars reinforcing the connections to represent the helping hands holding those connections together ([Chapter 27](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330885/chapters/1069514)): friends strengthening their friends for their own relationships, holding them there when things are worst (Acts 4 and 5*), and knowing when to let go (Chapter 49). The symbol: a hand gently holding together the holding hands of another couple. Auspistice. And now all I needed was someone to communicate it, and so, the Triumvirate.

[](http://i.imgur.com/2aKf2.png)

Yeah. I should be home by dinner.

This is how my brain works. It never helps. "You know, it's disappointing how people misattribute moirallegience to best friendship. By undermining what makes the canon relationship unique and interesting, they're inadvertently undermining their intent to communicate that special platonic relationships have a particular, unique worth. I'm already writing a fic about what makes ashenrom narratively interesting. I'm sure I could do pale pretty quickly, so long as I underline the things that make it distinct from the "BBFsies quadrant" fanon ideal. Really simple, actually. I bet a children's book could do it. Heh. Hahahaha. Okay, that's good. A children's book. Let's do that." Eight months later I wake up in Alexander Rosetti's dumpster smelling like fish oil!

So the Horrorterror was introduced to spell out that relationships are the fundamental component of society and that auspistice serves to bolster that, becoming a new level of fundamental. They succeeded in doing so, but only by being so blunt that the point could not conceivably have been missed! This is a problem. It shows no respect whatsoever to the reader, and destroys my angle of game-like narrative allowing the reader to take in all angles of a situation by lecturing them instead. You know, like I'm doing right now. In this post-mortem.

:33 < it just keeps hapening!

This problem is especially true in the commentary draft. There are those who have said that the best game stories have come from the early age of games, when there was less power to implement the world and so more need for the player to create that world in their own minds. Thanks to this phenomenon, there's a very large and significant valley of quality that lies between abstract execution and detailed execution, wherein a good idea _cannot_ be successfully conveyed to the audience… at least not as a good idea! Not being capable of reaching the _detailed_ side of that valley in my commentary draft, I should have shot for _abstract_ execution, but by applying the Secret Strifes as a blunt instrument, I feel I trip into the valley instead and am currently rolling around at the bottom like a golf ball while a handful of readers re-read the past few paragraphs to see if they make any sense at all. Don't mind me. I'm rollin' in a pit, no harm done.

:(( < please get us out it's dark

Ignore her she has no flair for the comic.

:(( < it's not funny when no one can see you!

Yes, probably.

  


**The Problem of Hindsight:** That I have to address the members of the Triumvirate during the "things that didn't work" section as opposed to the "Characters" section is my first indictment against them.

Hindsight's plotline was supposed to go like this: she introduces herself as Mirann, is shown to be strong and capable (having apparently overcome the dangers of the Horrorterrors to use their magic with impunity), and is happy with "Aidan," an interspecies relationship: all things early-Acts Rose wanted for herself, especially when things began to go sour with Kanaya. There's nothing wrong with wanting those things – even having control over Horrorterror magic seems fair when Presence, seemingly another entity, is implying that Rose could easily be coerced into letting in the evils of the Furthest Ring. In this regard, Hindsight was supposed to spend her initial arc becoming a mother figure Rose that Rose begins to trust over her own friends, a trust she finds hard to shake even when things get ugly. Rose ultimately only learns to detach herself from Hindsight only after Ghost Bro hints that she should sever all ties to parent figures and learn to stand on her own. This temporarily resolves Hindsight's arc (doubly so once Rose puts those lessons into action in the main body of CYQ) and leaves us in Presence's dirty footsteps for the rest of the fic, until the final Secret Strife. When [T] Downfall shows that Hindsight is Cetus, her guiding, maternal role makes even more sense. Hindsight was only going to make a few cameos after CYQ, always playing on the old, dead maternal relationship, toxic.

Like Hussie with the dancestors, Hindsight was also going to be more and more obviously a normal person over time, instead of a faceless adult, a theme he and Homestuck have been building up to since the beginning. Arguably the only remaining sign of this is in the fic is Hindsight laughing at the kids when Jack reveals himself as Presence, since most of her latter scenes were cut down to summary-only.

The final showdown between Rose and Hindsight was going to take place late in the fic, when Rose and Feferi were fighting about each other's influence on the group and the direction future society is going to take. Cetus would begin to provoke them from the shadows, revealing that she has the power to enter the session and that the kids' attempts to keep her out have been in vain (thus why this plot element is so quickly tossed into being by Doc Scratch in the current draft, and why Rose and Feferi's bickering never comes to a head in the current draft as well).

The Problem of Hindsight is that, when I got to drafting Hindsight's initial scenes, I found the need to cram in scenes with Foresight before the Triumvirate was first unmasked. This cost me valuable scenes with Hindsight, even though we were in commentary format and I had all the room I needed. Before I knew it, I had screwed up so badly that the maternal relationship did not exist. Then I made a conscious mistake that was almost as bad: I decided that since I had failed to include the maternal relationship, I would not include the cameos either. By the time I got to the final arc, I realized it was too late for Hindsight. I had failed, and I felt it would not have made sense to have the climax of that character arc without the body. As a result, I shoehorned the Mask fight into _Dawn_ (the Cetus fight was always there).

What's silly is that this all could have been avoided if I had just said, as I often did during the commentary: "I messed up and here's what's supposed to have happened." I'll admit: I don't know what I would have done to make Hindsight/Mirann work in the full draft, and that will bother me forever. But there is no reason the _commentary_ draft had to suffer for this exclusion when its greatest advantage is to avoid silly oversights! This is the single biggest blow to the entire Horrorterror plot, in my opinion, given that it should have woven the plot into every act of the story instead of back loading to the Secret Strifes and _Dawn_

  


**The Oversight of Presence:** The only problem I have with Presence is a lack of good Jack quips – though one is alluded to [Chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330885/chapters/591459):

> "…How about you _see_ a bit more?" [Presence says before tipping Dave back to the sanity-shattering Nyarlathotep.]
> 
> […]
> 
> "The false Rose was saying that something was 'Awful,' but I was not really in the mood to eavesdrop."

Yeah, she was supposed to be talking about the quip. That's really so awful it's not even that obvious, I should touch it up a bit.

But seriously, the only problem I have with Presence is that she takes Rose's form because Rose is "the clear and present danger" (and has presumably kept this form for the length of multiple dollhouse universes) but the fic does not go to lengths to keep Rose centred as "the clear and present danger"! Some reminder that Rose was supposed to go over to the HT's side after should have been included at regular intervals.

  


**The Portrayal of Foresight:** Like Hindsight, Foresight's role was trimmed back for presumed lack of would-be screen time. He was supposed to appear as a grandfather figure and come to abuse that artificial love to get under Rose's skin in later Acts, ultimately leading to his comments in _Dawn's_ Secret Strife where he talks about the production of _The Squiddles!_ Since Foresight's _had_ to be the most blunt of the three Secret Strifes, – though not near as blunt as he ended up being – I at least wanted his comments about educating children to sound not-so-charitable. This had an additional bonus: it would make the reveal that he had been playing Hindsight and Presence for fools all the more natural. After all, even his attempts to educate kids were self-serving!

This sinister, successful Foresight also would have served as a conclusion to the fic that shall not be named. Here at the end of _Hands_ you would have seen the end of Foresight's arc from that fic: the manipulator, having betrayed his friends, has finally faced up to his sins to make his own Choice: to embrace his ego and betray himself last of all, both literally (Hindsight and Presence) and figuratively by destroying his old ideals. As the bonus epilogue of that fic that shall not be named once said: he would never speak to another Horrorterror again.

  


**Feferi's early storyline:** Including Sollux and Aradia's friendship. Why did this never work? No matter how often I tried she's barely in the first few acts. Disastrous, how did I screw this up in Draft 2 when I knew I had screwed it up already? I don't have anything else to add to this, I'm really just sort of baffled.

  


**Rose's complete breakdown in Chapter 47:** Rose reaction to her auspistice collapsing in Chapter 47 is far more extreme than actually intended. Why? Simply put: I once again lost faith in the commentary format and didn't believe I was properly communicating how terrified everyone was of the Dawn. Imagine me appearifying behind you and smacking you with a pool noodle while shouting "SHE'S SCARED!" and you'll realize why I hate this and have hated it nearly since I put it up. This isn't really big enough to impact the fic as a whole, but it's still bothering me, and so I've put it at the end of this list.

.

* * *

.

Having discussed the fic's pluses and minuses, I figured I should move on to an area not so easily split into good and bad: the characters, their portrayal and their respective voices, and put my finger on a few more precise strengths and weaknesses compared to the previous section. After that we can wrap up. Go get a coffee, we can start when you get back.


	2. Postmortem & Analysis: Characters

So let's take a look at the characters in turn.

 **Rose:** While I'd like to start this process on a high note, it makes far more sense to start it on my lead and my lead is wretched. I don't know who she is but she's fairly clearly not Rose. Perhaps I overcompensated in an attempt to keep her from flanderization, or perhaps she's simply "overcooked," in the sense that she's been put through the scenarios in my plot for two and a half years now and resembles one of my creations far more than anyone else's, like, say, Andrew's. It doesn't help that Rose has gone in somewhat unexpected directions in canon since I started, which is going to be a recurring theme but is no more comforting. While I think most of us realized that canon Rose's personality early on was a false maturity (many of us have known a Rose growing up, I think), being able to predict her dive into alcoholism and the mood changes needed to get there would have required an understanding of her mother (that is to say, of Roxy), and we lacked that understanding in late 2010. Still, there have been too many times when I was reading a liveblog of canon or just going to an older page when I sat back and thought "I sure wish I were writing about the actual characters." I suppose the actual characters just wouldn't be doing the things these characters do here? It's not that I can't write these characters (well, besides Sollux), I just can't write them… here? A downside of my point-for-point pre-planned writing process I suppose, and disastrous overall. Acceptable fiction, terrible fanfiction. 

Characterization aside I move on to voice, and as far as voice goes, I find I can still write a good, loyal-to-canon Rose voice, but only in pesterlogs. In prose, Rose slips into my default and any resemblance is superficial at best. Maybe slipping into Homestuck's native format helps me slip in to Rose? Whatever she is, Rose is functional in her role, if a busybody eavesdropper and less-than-likable person overall. 

Unfortunately, any evaluation of Rose's character is also hindered by the fact that, as lead, Rose's emotional state should be enhanced the mood of the story as a whole, where other characters only get highlight scenes. Especially in this story. This causes her to suffer in the summary format. This caveat also applies to the central relationship, the Rose/Vriska/Eridan auspistice, and that's a bad thing, because this relationships forms _the core of the fundamental thesis of the narrative_ (since auspistice was meant to stand as a barometer of society, so should stand as a barometer of the plot). On top of this, because I assumed Rose's relationships could be communicated passively during the course of the story, I often failed to mention them in the summary, meaning they "disappear" for long stretches. This is especially bad for the auspistice and Rose/Terezi. When the relationships finally come back for a spotlight scene, I often had to tell-not-show you what they had been up to, and that leads to the least effective sections of the summary.

Overall, my Rose strikes me as bland, forgettable, unrelatable and overtly functional, but she _is_ functional. While I'd rather not have had to revert to a summary to begin with, better it have had a functional POV than an unreliable or a poorly written POV. Still, smart enough to follow my creative knots but pig-headed enough to blunder into mistakes like a real teenager, Rose suffices.

  


**Feferi** was meant to be a parallel to Rose, something my narrative accomplishes by failing to communicate this until the story is more than half-over. But we discussed that above.

Admittedly, the mood of Feferi's relationships is more easily communicated than Rose's. First off, she's not the lead, so her scenes were meant to be communicated through highlight scenes. Secondly, due to my own failure to include her in the early half of the fic, all of her highlight scenes were clustered toward the end, meaning I couldn't have possibly skipped them in the summary without turning her into Hindsight and dumping her altogether!

Feferi was meant to embody an auspistice done right, what with Feferi actually coming from Troll culture and all. That way, when she breaks up with her auspisticees, she does so knowing the costs and benefits, something Rose only learns over the course of time. A careful reader will, without even requiring real-world knowledge, notice that the story sets out these benefits early on: the first clue from Troll culture in The Tale of the Lone Soldier, where, however selfishly, the moirail is forced to leave the relationship for when the time comes for their own sake, after a long period of trying to help them both. The second clue comes from Human culture in the end of the intermission, where Plumbthroat breaks the relationship for both his and Berryboo's sake, the mutual benefit being enshrined in Human culture. Feferi recognizes the costs of her ongoing relationship far before Rose, and in ending her relationship Aradia and Equius to begin a new, she foreshadows Rose's doing the same.

Since Feferi's relationship often foreshadows Rose's, lastly note that Aradia and Feferi's ex-auspistice relationship carries on strong in the end of the main flash, even though Feferi's matespritship seems headed for unavoidable disaster, the same as Rose.

While the largest problems in Feferi's plotline come from elementary pacing issues I've already discussed (namely their complete and utter absence), the rest comes from voice. I've already discussed in my commentary for [_Musical Thrones_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/476584/chapters/836182) that I had long thought that canon Feferi would eventually take charge of the group later in canon, possibly coming into conflict with Karkat where her policy of "culling" conflicted with his policy of… well, Karkat being a Human in Troll clothes sometimes. Putting her in conflict with Rose, an actual Human, for similar reasons just made _sense_ to me, but it's resulted in a completely inaccurate character voice for Feferi, because my theories on Feferi never came to light. She's _not_ the kind of person to take charge, she's not focused on organization... so many things. This is actually kind of strange to me, because Feferi is an optimist snarker, and those tend to be some of my favourite people! I really shouldn't be off mis-characterizing her as the shadow-deuteragonist of a giant fanfic, I should be writing as a lead of her own in some other fanfic, using her authentic voice and having fun with it. How did I end up here?

  


Leaving our lead and shadow-lead to look at the immediate support cast, I find **Vriska** 's portrayal Mostly Okay™. Her voice tends towards accuracy and her portrayal seemed all right prior to Act 6 Intermission 5, when Andrew shot it in the gut.

I'm referring to Vriska's moment of choosing to be herself even though no one else supports her. It's referred to as the _Wreck-It Ralph_ moment sometimes. See, while this moment is much lauded in the fandom as a moment of solidarity, I see it as more of a warning to the fandom that solidarity is about to make Vriska repeat her tragic mistakes, perhaps at the cost of her own afterlife, rather than learn from those mistakes and grow. Where Ralph's moment in his film is a realization that he was never a faulty person to begin with, Vriska is a faulty person, who is choosing to embrace things that have cost her more than paid, and this in spite of the urging of her closest loved ones. It's that last point that raises issues with my portrayal of Vriska. If canon Vriska has refused to listen to the people closest to her heart, even though she has had _thousands or millions of years to mull it over_ , it makes me wonder if she is actually capable of changing as drastically as I had her change in the course of just a few _months_. Her arc in the fic just seems like a gross mischaracterization in hindsight. Hussie has underlined Vriska as the great immovable object, and I failed to portray her as such.

And yes, I do dock myself points for characterization even though this information about Vriska was only presented to me after the fact.

A better idea, not that I could have known when I was starting, would have been to pace the fic of the course of – wait for it – three years. True, canon Vriska didn't change even over the course of eternity, but eternity seems to do funny things to the dream bubble cast, so three years sounds nearabouts reasonable. Hell, I'd feel almost more comfortable with more time, even if the fic would play out in essentially the same manner and the change in timeline would be mostly cosmetic. It would have also given Aradia and Dave more breathing room to have scenes if they didn't have to be out every day, though perhaps the lack of breathing room has its own appeal.

Overall though, I can't fault myself for Vriska. A good chunk of this entire story has always been hers: the buildup to CYQ, her bonding with Rose in Act 4. Vriska even stays in the spotlight in chapters where the auspistice had "disappeared" (as I described for Rose, above), so, all-in-all, her coverage is probably the best of any secondary character, maybe any character overall, proportionately. Can't complain.

  


On the other hand, when the auspistice "disappeared" in later chapters, **Eridan** seemed to disappear with it. Looking back, it's clear that I had only given him his individual plots until his breakup with Tavros. At this point, my timeline stops mentioning him individually, and he is only addressed under plot elements that impact the auspistice as a trio. While the completed novel(s) might have better disguised Eridan's absence, I think this would still be a disguise and that the summary has benefited us by exposing this deficiency. It's nice to know that summaries have this advantage. I'll have to consider using them on my projects in the future. But as far as _Hands_ is concerned, this lack is going to remain a lack, and that's too bad.

As for voice, Eridan's voice is not inaccurate but also not exactly in place either. It is a light flanderization, reflective Hussie's own use of Eridan in scenes like the Ministrife when he is not the focus of the scene, if that makes any sense.

Personally I think both issues would have been best addressed by allowing Eridan to pursue another relationship in the later stages of the plot, probably with Feferi but earlier than it happened in the fic-as-written. I also strongly considered hooking him up red with Equius but both relationships would have gotten Eridan entangled in the Blaze, against the Humans, which I can't imagine he would do at that point in the plot. About all I could have done was hook Eridan up with Karkat, which isn't an absurd idea but I felt would have hurt their friendship (…even though that friendship isn't portrayed in the fic…) and Karkat's propensity toward friendship is a major motivator for _him_ in the build-up to the Blaze, and of course, the Blaze itself. So all-in-all, post breakup Eridan is a disaster. Pity.

  


Changing gears, in many ways, **Terezi** 's storyline was always on mark, because she was a pure utility character. She is a primary mover-and-shaker in the plot: if Terezi had wandered off-screen or off-mark, sometimes the plot wouldn't have been moving at all! Terezi introduces the main thematic conflicts of the culture clash in Chapter 4 and she controls most of her scenes until the end, when she and Rose seem to have found their own hope at the end of the story, as well as their first adult relationship. Since that start point and that end point were solidly placed in my mind, they were at the forefront of my mind when I was writing _The Dargon Arc_. There is perhaps no bigger in-fic reason to underline that "Moirallegience Is More Serious Than Serious Friendship" than Rose and Terezi's relationship. If "Moirallegience Was Just Friendship," that would have undermined the hand-hold, and it would have undermined Terezi's opposition to friendship in the later chapters, since Terezi was on the cusp of the issue (by the way, did you notice the groups in favour of and against the friendship issues were class/caste-divided and so Terezi, at the cusp of being a highblood, is also on the cusp of the discussion?). And it certainly would have scuttled Rose's attempts to grow into Troll culture without misappropriating their culture if she had misappropriated one of their romances as a best friendship!

It's also important for me to segue into the discussion of Terezi's written voice without dropping the previous topic. Terezi's voice was always more-or-less out of my reach, and I never pretended otherwise, but it suffered a major hit when the first draft's version of Chapter 4 came out. To repeat: Terezi's breakdown was supposed to have been a revelation of just how violent the Trolls could be, but no one bought my approach. Trying to repair the chapter left me with a Trolldom that was not as violent as had been planned, but Terezi's outburst remained, leaving Terezi as the only remaining hyperviolent Troll, the only one clearly afraid of being alone despite her describing this as a cultural concern! This not only does damage to Terezi's voice and Terezi's portrayal, but it takes her out of line with the other Trolls!

With Terezi's intended portrayal spelled out, the moirallegience's purpose is clear: it represents Rose's ability to adjust to Troll culture to some fractional degree, and in turn gain the benefits of a true companion in a strong romance. In turn, "my Terezi" gained the relationship she felt she needed. She is still afraid as they approach Jack, but she is also already reaching out to Rose at in the final approach: she knows Rose will take her hand at the end of the world. Rose: not Karkat, because Rose and Karkat mean different things to Terezi, equally important but importantly different things, that are critical in their own way. In short, Rose and Terezi's relationship is one I truly regretted having to largely relegate entirely to summary.

Still not an accurate portrayal of Terezi though, ten points from [Slytherin](http://www.pottermore.com/).

  


Rose's last big partner, **Kanaya** , wasn't supposed to be such a clear-cut relationship in the original, as I've said. They were supposed to be iffy and awkward about it, refusing to settle into a quadrant because, deep inside, they could not overcome the culture clash and knew they did not yet belong in any quadrant. But I wavered, and hooked them up anyway. That's all right, I suppose, you could consider that their call, mistake or courage, but it left Kanaya without a thematic role for a time. It wasn't until the second draft that Kanaya really found a home in the thesis: representing what will be mainstream Trolldom in the immediate post-game, whether Rose realizes it or not. As a result, her relationship with Rose is meant to reflect the costs and benefits of Human-Troll interaction in general, and Kanaya's interaction with Jade was supposed to reflect future Troll-Human interaction on the level of a simple association, but then I forgot about that so let's forget about that. Good? Good.

Now, whether Rose and Kanaya's relationship is going to succeed after the end of the fic is another question. Kanaya's efforts with the breeding cave look like they're going to be a rousing success, so she'll be happy, personally, but that's all you get. A second question might be whether Rose and Kanaya's relationship is supposed to represent Troll-Human societal interaction as a whole, and I can't say if it does or not. The future, as I've said, is out of the bounds of auspistice and this auspistice fic, and this matespritship and what it represents are out of my hands and in those of the audience's imagination.

Kanaya's voice is the usual fandom misinterpretation, I'll cop to that. If you've been around long enough you know exactly what I mean. Where is your snark, Miss Maryam?

  


**Dave** gets off far too easy in this fic. Nevermind the whole superhero thing, which he also gets off too easy on, he's essentially done no wrong for the entire fic, to the point where it seems like he's getting a sue-defence. Then he suddenly careens into a wall. Dave was meant to embody a bunch of conservative fears that the other Humans just weren't voicing (primarily because they were narratively inconvenient): being anti-poly, anti-blackrom, that sort of thing. Dave seemed best for that kind of opposition, and the blackrom thing even turned out to be canon! So that worked out, but the start could have used work to make it more realistic.

Dave and Aradia's relationship running into trouble at the end of the fic was a natural extension of me hooking the two of them up on the spur of the moment in the original draft. Because of that abrupt hook-up, in the second draft I made them the poster children for devil-may-care attitudes and rash relationship decisions. How'd that go for you, Dave? Yeah? Well fuck you too!

Dave's voice is rotten in prose, probably the worst in the entire set with the possible exception of, oh look at that, Aradia (or maybe Sollux). His pesterlog voice is pretty good, though.

  


Actually, would it have been entirely possible for anyone but Hussie to have created a consistent voice for **Aradia** over the past two-and-a-half years of changing personalities? Unfortunately I made the mistake of putting my own Aradia in transition between her robot and live personalities so I can't honestly say if her voice is near the mark (er… "a" mark) at all!

Functionally speaking, Aradia gets all-juvenile relationships and like her partners doesn't seem to realize that that is what they are, which is, I suppose, a blanket indictment over the lot of them, though they are teenagers. On some level, Aradia does react to her problems, but only a little: I don't have much going on for her in terms of theme and grander purpose. This is going to sound insufficient, but I think that has to do with the way I was writing my second draft plans: Aradia's character arc was the first I outlined, and I had not yet gotten into the flow of including the character's relevance to the story at large, so her summary was an incredibly basic connect-the-dots of spotlight scenes instead? As weak an excuse as that sounds, it may be likely, as some of the other weak characters have also been shunted to the front of the planning document. All things considered, I don't consider Aradia a very weak character, and I think a lot of her decisions make sense in context and it makes her seem more like a real teenager. Those decisions just… don't have a larger purpose, is the problem. Her revival was used to accelerate conflict in her relationships (it roughly analogues to CYQ for Feferi's auspistice) but Aradia herself, when she's good at all, is simply good improvisation rather than good planning.

  


**Equius'** purpose in the fic was to emphasize the Troll's conservatism, opposite Dave. He and Nepeta also set off the big fight in Chapter 46, the build-up to which was supposed to go unnoticed until the bomb goes off: the plot was supposed to appear as being a simple Nepeta/Jade plot until that moment, when the reality of its impact is unveiled. Equius' most important relationship is the one with Nepeta, even if it was shoved under a tarp from time to time to keep readers from noticing the developments leading up to and following the Blaze. It is the first of the mature relationships, which Kanaya hints early on when she remarks on how Nepeta has been deeply changed by her relationship with Equius, and this is proven by how they confront their problem in the end of the fic. This once again contrasts Equius with Dave, who does not confront his problems with Aradia until it is too late, to their mutual cost.

Equius' voice could be better but I can't complain. Needs more horse puns. I will not provide.

  


I love **Nepeta** and you cannot take her away from me. But that said, my Nepeta isn't the canon Nepeta. Once again we turn to _Musical Thrones_ , where I noted that I had originally predicted that Nepeta would go furious and serious after Equius' I-felt-inevitable death. In that regard, I always cast her as the child-at-heart who nevertheless clearly understands the need to be more serious in everyday life (that serious side that I felt would emerge later on). Nepeta in canon is probably… while not truly naïve as flanderized, not so serious as I might have hoped?

To outline: canon Feferi notices and participates in the ugly side of the world but is genuinely optimistic, while canon Nepeta seems to be genuinely optimistic to the point that she's sometimes lying to herself about some of the world's failings. She does not seem to have admitted to those faults until meeting Roxy, where she's talked about her boy trouble, at least. (Which boys I wonder? Karkat? Equius? Gamzee? All of the above?) My Nepeta, on the other hand, is related to canon Feferi. While my Nepeta is not naturally optimistic (though that does not necessarily make her a pessimist), she enjoys being optimistic too much to stop, only becoming serious when the world absolutely denies her the opportunity to do otherwise. Essentially, both characters (canon Feferi and my fic's Nepeta) are playing with the world in a way I personally enjoy, dealing with the harsher side with creativity and good humour without denying the problems. Adding to things I enjoy: I suppose I also see more of a creator in Nepeta than, say, Meulin, who may be a writer but seems to be doing it for the ships rather than the narrative and the play, so if I could only have one catgirl stuck on my hand like a gangrenous tumour, I know which one I would rather have.

:33 < you're welcome

Nepeta is one of the characters in the fic who do not belong to the larger groups (which is to say, the auspistices and their immediate official relationships). Instead, she and the others bridge the larger groups, and that means we've entered the B-cast. While there's nothing wrong with having a B-cast, these "bridge characters" have a problem all their own that applies to all of them as a group. Namely: their relationships have a greater purpose but the characters themselves lack one, making their relationships more important than _they_ are. Nepeta is a bit more important than some of the other bridgers because she's in relationship with fellow bridgers Jade and Sollux, but that doesn't get her out of hot water. See, the problem is that Nepeta is one of several canon characters that the _fandom_ tends to treat as being less important than their relationships. Her and Feferi especially.

I like Meowrails as much as Absolutely Everyone Everywhere Without Exception, but it was a little disheartening to see the scene where ARquius and Erisolsprite apologize to Fefetasprite, because I just _knew_ that even though Fefetasprite did not actually accept the apology thanks to Andrew's no-speaking gag and their untimely explosion, the fandom was going to be cheering the fact that Nepeta and Feferi were "The Boys' Girlfriends" again. That's all the fandom ever gives them, that's all Feferi and Nepeta will ever be good for, isn't it? And it bothered me that Andrew did not give them a say in their own affairs at the time. I remember thinking about how Roxy had mentioned her sprite talking about her boy troubles, and suddenly there was nothing I wanted Nepeta and Feferi to do but flip off all three boys, hug Roxy and go off to have Adventures of their own. I don't care what kind of Adventures. Maybe join up with Calliope's ghost as the Eternal Optimist Patrol, I'm not picky. Instead, Andrew has put them in a bundle with Sollux and Tavros as the Eternally Forgotten Characters Patrol and… I don't know.

I'd like to think I could have done better on my own front, is all.

It's really my own fault. As should be obvious by now, if "Friendship as perceived by the Trolls" is a reflection of the Troll relationships as perceived by the Humans, then Nepeta is a Rose-analogue, in how she's the first to officially enter into a relationship alien to her culture. Her explosion to Equius can also be seen as an analogue to the first chapter, in that regard. Unlike Rose who goes in unwittingly, Nepeta only does so after deep personal reflection. Nepeta has had a friendcrush on Jade for some time: [Chapter 22](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330885/chapters/1046923), the chapter with the shipping grids, is meant to hint at this by giving you a Nepeta-eye view on the situations in the lab. Think about the grids in the order they're introduced to see Nepeta's thought process: Dave/Terezi, then the Friendship circle, then the Nepeta/Jade grids. Dave and Terezi's grids have been wiped out, but Nepeta is thinking about friendship (probably as a segue from their broken relationships) and then goes on to find that she also doesn't fit into a relationship with Jade. The conclusion probably followed soon after, though it took time for her to acknowledge it and even longer to admit it to Equius.

On the other side of the shipping grid, Nepeta's relationship with Sollux was, as I've previous said, an Emergency Kismeses I included while planning the second draft, and just built up to it in the background. Nevertheless: I tried to set it up as a stable juvenile relationship to compare a) Karkat and Terezi's ultimately stable adult kismesis, and b) Aradia and Equius' unstable juvenile kismesis. Lastly, we have Nepeta and Equius' mostly-mature moirallegience, which I've already discussed.

She's just, you know, not there to highlight anything about herself.

  


In a large and disappointing way, in having talked about Nepeta I've already mostly defined **Jade**. This is the problem with characters being more defined by their relationships than themselves! Jade is perhaps the only double-Z ranked character, since her character is defined by her interactions with Nepeta, a dropped plotline with Kanaya, and _nothing else_. This probably stems from the way she just didn't show up in the first draft. I think I've got a good reason for that: it was October 2010 and Jade had had been out of the story for months as she experienced the slowest fall in the history of fiction, and when she came back, she had a completely new personality! Andrew had finally found his stride with Jade, and I had nothing planned for her. Canon Jade would later blow up at Karkat an ashen rage so impressive that if this fic had been written months later, she would have certainly been the lead instead of Rose, and Karkat there instead of Vriska. Instead, I planned the entire outline of the original draft with no amenities for Miss Harley, and never really recovered.

To make matters worse, Jade's voice is off, and I don't even have an explanation for that because I write her just fine in pesterlogs and one-offs these days! And it's not just her voice that's off: more than a lot of characters, her actual reactions are off. There's no way the actual Jade would have overreacted to Nepeta's attraction like my Jade did, given her canon reaction to Tavros. In a related complaint, too many of Nepeta and Jade's scenes take place off-screen, and their final talk doesn't even take place because otherwise it would have broken the final chapter's dismal mood too early, and wow, that's just forced writing. In the second draft I did give her the responsibility of being the foreman for the Rat Trap, but with all those chapters in summary, we don't get to see her do it, and from the summary, it's clear that the role has no thematic impact: it's only surface deep!

My best remedy would have been to give Jade, Karkat and John more scenes together as The Three Bosses. This started out pretty well together when the three of them were talking to Kanaya, and that was mostly improv so imagine what I could have done with them with planning? Since that _was_ mostly improv, it's also possible that I actually might have given those three more scenes in the future as I continued to improvise, but I wish I had planned it. But that's just well-wishes. Here in the land of the extant, Jade is only marginally more significant than John or Karkat, and that's because she's in a relationship with someone who is more important than her. Problematic. Actually, awful. Let's go with "awful." Have you read [this](http://amazing-e-ko.tumblr.com/post/49655673080/five-things-to-bear-in-mind-when-writing-jade-harley)? Yeah, I'm upgrading this one to awful.

  


After **Gamzee** was revealed as Bard of Calm, I came across a critical issue: like Eridan, I had nothing left to do with him. In the summary, I desperately played for content, by making out that Gamzee might or might not be a threat, and therefore overblowed Presence's point about not being able to trust your friends – Presence's point was _supposed_ to be referring to Feferi and Rose turning on each other in the final act, as described in the previous section, but we all know how that turned out. Look at how all these stupid final-act problems compounded! I'm just coming to grips with it!

Worse still was the fact that I had Supermanned myself into a corner: Gamzee's power was too good and the cast could never tear themselves apart with him dozing over their shoulders. As a result, even if I had wanted to stop overblowing Presence's point I would have been unable to do so, as Gamzee could not, well, _be in scenes_ any more, one way or another. Ultimately I pseudo-resolved Gamzee's is-he-trustworthy-or-not failure of a plotline by having him clobber Mirann over the head as partial payment for his dismemberment and manipulation. Best I could do.

As far as voice goes I'm quite happy with my high!Gamzee but never really felt calm!Gamzee. Taking him out of the story in the lattermost act at least ensures that you didn't have to hear more of his voice.

  


Moving from Gamzee, we go to the one character who is not a bridge character but is nevertheless treated as being less important than his relationships. **Tavros**. Here we come to a serious case of "Holy shit, there's nothing for him to do after this, is there?" in regards to his breakup with Eridan. Even Eridan gets air time as a generic member of the central auspistice! This issue was a surprise to me especially. After all, hasn't Tavros been in my icon for the past two and a half years? In fact, that may be part of the problem. With Tavros so strongly associated with Vriska and Eridan in the early chapters, I may have considered him "accounted for" whenever a chapter accounted for the auspistice! So in the end, Tavros completes his character arc by standing up for himself and casting problematic elements out of his life… leaving him useless for the rest of the fic! Great lessons for the kids here, Squiddles team. Fantastic job.

Ugh, so who else is terrible? I mean a bridge character. Who else is a terrible bridge character?

  


**Sollux** 's friendship with Aradia was supposed to be built-up better in the earlier chapters so that his allegiance would be more clear come the explosion in 46. Unfortunately, their friendship was eaten with most of Feferi's early storyline and the whole thing plunged. It was also supposed to be implied that Sollux and Aradia would advance from their (Troll) trial relationship into a (Human) friendship sometime after the fight with Jack (a new element of the post-game society), though that didn't come across either. See, a nuance about Sollux&Aradia that I added when the draft was already in progress was that they weren't supposed to realize they were friends until after Nepeta's explosion. But… I simply forgot? Entirely? Like, the entire arc? This mostly resulted from me adding the nuance above, and then forgetting to add its progress to my timeline. Well now I know, don't I?

Sollux's voice is awful but this time it's because I didn't even try. I can't do Sollux, even in pesterlogs. I didn't waste time bothering. He also doesn't get many chances to speak in the commentary, which certainly isn't a positive grade toward his voice. To just throw onto the pile, he also lost a number of scenes from the plan, most of them early black gestures towards Nepeta that I cut because they seemed too red. I probably should given them something in place of those red scenes, some physical or black teasing and flirting, but generally I cut them and left nothing in their place! I also wish I had given Sollux and Equius more to do together, and Sollux definitely could have been a major supporting player in the hypothetical Karkat/John/Jade circle I describe above, if that had occurred to me. But it didn't do any of those things, and as a result, Sollux is one of the worst character arcs in the plot.

So is there anybody left? Nobody? … _Who?_

  


Okay, so, **Karkat and John** aren't in this enough, and that went from quirky joke to a problem somewhere in the middle of the fic. These two have virtually no presence in the fic, except in terms of Karkat and Terezi's kismesis, discussed here and earlier in the commentary, and Karkat and Kanaya's moirallegience. This second relationship existed as an early showcase of the different affections found in each relationship – something that would become a much bigger issue later on – and to let Kanaya vent her indecisiveness with Rose in a productive, decisive direction. Not much came of it, disappointing. So again: Karkat's relationships with Kanaya and Terezi are more important than he is. Fantastic. At least John doesn't have that failing: he barely interacts with his friends and might as well not be there at all!

Karkat's voice is acceptable though I've seen many who would critique a Karkat voice that doesn't use creative and new insults, for which I have no talent, so if you want to count that as a negative, I won't stop you. John's voice is less than satisfactory, probably the only character who appears in a pesterlog and I still do not like it.

.

* * *

.

That said, there is one thing left for Karkat. If anyone recalls that far into the murk, I had promised, once upon a time, that I would complete one last [first-draft](http://archiveofourown.org/works/136167/chapters/195125) [style](http://archiveofourown.org/works/136167/chapters/236433) Intermission gag, and so here that is before one final conclusion in the final chapter of this document.

Now where were we? …Ah, yes. Karkat was scribbling on sheets of paper, "preparing for the fucking inevitable"…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're less relevant to the story-at-large, but I condensed some previously-made conclusions about the Dargon Arc cast onto my tumblr, [here](http://skaianr.tumblr.com/post/53250640735/squiddles-notes).


	3. Karkat: Prepare Distaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original First Draft intermission gags: [Intermission 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/136167/chapters/195125), [Intermission 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/136167/chapters/236433)
> 
> An unrelated Karkat-as-Strong-Bad fic: [kk_email.exe](http://archiveofourown.org/works/160641)

[ _Karkat continues his work at the sheets of paper. Terezi, still dressed as Homestar Runner, approaches, The Cheatpeta at her feet, walking on her knees. True to the last intermission, she is dressed like[Gunhaver](http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Gunhaver) from the Cheat Commandos, but has clearly stolen Equius' shades._ ]

**TEREZI:** Hey, Karkat!

 **KARKAT:** [ _slams his arms over the papers to hide them_ ] Bite me!

 **TEREZI:** [ _giggling_ ] Hey.

 **KARKAT:** No.

 **TEREZI:** Karkat.

 **KARKAT:** No.

 **TEREZI:** Karkat.

 **KARKAT:** I said fuck off you—

 **TEREZI:** Can you do a recap all of _Sluggy Freelan--_

 **KARKAT:** [ _throws papers in her face_ ] Huttah!

[ _Karkat flees. As he bolks, Terezi swats papers out of her face and Nepeta catches one and takes a look. What she sees causes her face to light up. She shows it to Terezi, who sniffs it and then lights up as well._

_Cut to the papers._ ]

**CAPTION:** [ _TEEN GIRL SQUAD!_ ](http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgsmenu.html)

**CAPTION:** Cheerleader!

[ _Feferi – "Chocolate-Covered Granola!"_ ]

**CAPTION:** So-And-So! 

[ _Kanaya – "Raspberry Torte!"_ ]

**CAPTION:** What's Her Face! 

[ _Vriska – "Entire Box of Cookies!"_ ]

**CAPTION:** The Ugly One!! 

[ _John – "Rhubarb and Carp?" John looks around as per his canon first page, seems to realize what's being said about him, and says: "Kark—" before being cut off by a scene change._

_The Teens are gathered in the usual empty environment. They all sound like Karkat affecting the exact same high pitch._ ]

**FEFERI:** Hey gals, let's go get ready to look—

 **Absolutely no one but KANAYA:** \--SO GOOD!

[ _The others shoot her funny looks._ ]

**KANAYA:** …I'm sorry.

 **FEFERI:** Anydangways: let's get ready to LOOK FOR RECIPIES! Because I just signed us all up for a CHARITY BAKE SALE!

 **KANAYA:** Ugh.

 **VRISKA:** Ugh.

 **JOHN:** Ugh.

 **FEFERI:** It's for "Cull the Orphans," and the person who earns the most money wins FREE HORN POLISH!

 **KANAYA, VRISKA and **JOHN:**** I want horn polish!

 **JOHN:** I want it for things!

[ _All three of them stare death at one another while Feferi grins on._ ]

**ALL:** BAKE-OFF! 

[ _A baking montage begins to the tune of Showtime played on a cheap Casio keyboard, during which a small flock of birds flies is errantly shot down by Karkat's imagination and baked into pies. The final shot of this montage is of John slacking off on a couch while his dad does the actual baking._

_Cut to the bake sale, a crowd shot with multiple poorly sketched cameos. Meenah and Jane both man booths marked with CrockerCorp logos and are shaking fists at one another. Eridan, Roxy, Sollux and Dave appear as a cameo as the[4 Gregs](http://www.homestarrunner.com/4gregs.html). The first three seem to be having a disagreement over which Greg is who while Dave tries to pretend that he hasn't been roped into this like John._ ]

**KANAYA:** [ _shopping_ ] I can't believe how much there is to eat!

 **KANAYA:** I think I'll have… this! And this! And thi—

[ _Spades Slick appears, wearing a trenchcoat. He holds up a caramel apple._ ]

**SLICK:** Psst. Hey lady. Wanna buy old Halloween candy?

 **KANAYA:** [ _takes it_ ] I _love_ hidden blades!

[ _A tiny door opens in the apple and a small Spades Slick jumps out and stabs her._ ]

**CAPTION:** JACKNIVE'D!

 **KANAYA:** Ow! My charity! [ _she takes another bite out of the apple_ ] My delicious charity!

[ _She dies._

_Cut to another part of the sale, where Feferi is manning a booth, surrounded by innumerable kelp products mixed with things that should never be mixed with kelp. Someone walks by._ ]

**FEFERI:** ExcusemesircanIshow-- Aww…

 **FEFERI:** !

 **FEFERI:** MaamcanIinterestyouina—

 **FEFERI:** Ugh!

 **FEFERI:** Why does nobody want to buy my grody health food?

[ _She picks up a dulce cookie and eyes it funny. Slowly, she opens her mouth and moves to eat it…_

_Abrupt cut to John and Vriska, who are running a joint sale table. Vriska jumps around, often standing on the table, to make sales as she talks like a circus barker._ ]

**VRISKA:** That's right, ladies, step right up! We've got cakes! We've got pies! We've got everything that could ever be made by a middle-aged man with a box of cake mix!

 **JOHN:** [ _holding a caramel apple with a trapdoor and bite out of it_ ] And some things that aren't!

[ _Vriska plops down into her chair as John cashes in a considerable amount of money to a strongbox._ ]

**JOHN:** This is great! Between my dad's baking and your selling skills, we'll win the prize no problem!

 **VRISKA:** We won't just win the prize, John! [ _she puts her arm around his shoulder and spreads her arm to the distance_ ] We could rule this whole town!

[ _Zoom in. She has turned to face him and is moving into his lap and whispering in his ear._ ]

**VRISKA:** And then? 

[ _The zoom continues to their faces with each of Vriska's lines until it is so close you cannot actually make out proper details._ ]

**VRISKA:** We'll have all our time…

 **VRISKA:** … _for ourselves_.

[ _John looks nervous but they move to kiss one another. Slowly… s l o w l y…_ ]

**CAPTION:** VRISKA'D! 

[ _John is suddenly dead with a traffic cone his chest. Vriska looks as confused as us._ ]

**VRISKA:** I don't even know what happened this time! 

[ _In the middle of the crowd, a man in important clothes holds up a ribbon marked "#1!" and a heavy bag marked with a Boonbucks sign. Feferi is in the background, pale green and slumped dead over her table._ ]

**JUDGE:** Attention! Attention! We've counted the money, and I'm here to announce the winner of the bake sale charity drive! And the winner is…! 

[ _Cut back to the real world, where every Troll is now gathered around Karkat's draft. Karkat walks by in the background, eating a caramel apple. Terezi looks up from the papers with annoyance._ ]

**TEREZI:** Karkat, did you actually cut off right there?

 **KARKAT:** Hey! You interrupted me in the middle of the creative process!

[ _A trapdoor opens in the apple, unnoticed and unacknowledged._ ]

**VRISKA:** But how do _I_ die?

 **KARKAT:** Oh, you win and get crushed by the money.

 **VRISKA:** [ _sniff_ ] It's how I want to go.

[ _Pause._ ]

**NEPETA:** I'm gonna finish it!

 **TEREZI:** No, me!

[ _We return to the paper, which is now filled with Terezi and Nepeta's chaotic crayon blobs._ ]

**JUDGE:** And the winner is…! 

[ _A police car crashes through the wall, running over Vriska. Nepeta (still Gunhaver) is driving, and Terezi (a Trollcop) is in the back. Terezi snatches up the ribbon and money._ ]

**TEREZI:** Criminal scum, we're shutting down this whole operation for ILLEGAL BAKING! I'll take these!

 **NEPETA:** And I'll take this!

[ _Nepeta snatches the horn polish from the judge and opens it up._ ]

**TEREZI:** Hey, careful! Don't use it all at once! 

[ _Gratuitous dark and edgy close-up of Nepeta._ ]

**NEPETA:** No way. When you work for the Law, you have to live on the edge! 

[ _She stands on the hood of the car, her horns glowing as Terezi runs off into the distance with the money after Meenah. Everyone else shies away from Nepeta, whose horns are literally glowing._ ]

**CHEAT COMMANDOS CHORUS:** [ _To the[Cheat Commandos theme tune](http://www.homestarrunner.com/cheatcommando.html)._ ] 

> Nepeta Leijon,  
>  She's got the shiniest horns here!  
>  And they blind us with the sun!

[ _Returning to a final Karkat panel, we finally say:_ ]

**CAPTION:** IT'S OVER!

.

* * *

.

####  **Easter Egg 1:**

[ _Cut back to Kanaya and the small and large Spades Slicks. Kanaya suddenly starts glowing white and stands back up. She looks at them, they look at her, and she picks up the apple and drains it to a husk with her fangs._ ]

**KANAYA:** Eh. 

[ _She leaves. The Spades look at one another and the tiny one shrugs._ ]

.

####  **Easter Egg 2:**

[ _Two Subjugglators are in an office marked "Cull the Orphans." One sits at a desk and the other is standing, carrying the bag of money. A grub sits on the desk._ ]

**SUBJUGGLATOR 1:** New charity money today!

 **SUBJUGGLATOR 2:** [ _wipes at eye_ ] *sniff* The system works!

[ _At the same time, they seem to notice the grub and crush it under their giant clubs._ ]

**SUBJUGGLATOR 2:** *sniff* 


	4. Postmortem & Analysis: FAQ

I figured I would answer any major questions in the body of the text.

FuzzyZergling asked:

> What in the nine Hells does the Horrorterror(s? Are there more than one?) want? I've read since the beginning, and I still can't figure it out.

First off, there is indeed only one that's relevant. Early on, it appears Rose has been spending time with a concert of Middling Gods, but these are, in fact, just the tentacles of a much greater monster in disguise, like finger puppets (a visual metaphor that recurred throughout the later chapters). This god is Nyarlathotep from Lovecraft's mythos, a god who often presents himself as having multiple identities as he haunts his worlds, these avatars known as "Masks." That's not my part, that's the mythos. My part is saying that there are multiple "Minds," each with at least one "Mask." Because he walks among his victims, Nyaralthotep is the only lovecraftian god that even acknowledges Humanity. In a world of giants among insects, Nyarlathotep is pulling wings off of flies.

Or at least, that's how it seems, until Lord English arrived on the scene (which given the nature of Paradox Space, may have been immediately). The Horrorterrors reacted by feeding Alpha Dave the map to the site of the Green Sun and sending Alpha Rose grimdark, etc, for reasons that will hopefully make sense before the comic was over. They seem to be setting LE up to fight Beta Calliope, if you ask me. But Nyarlathotep had his priorities in a different place. To keep Caliborn from slaughtering even more of his fellows as the Calliope plan goes into effect, he conspired to fight Lord English himself. His plan had a simple end-point: supercharge himself, already a member of one of the most powerful species to ever exist, with the powers of a First Guardian.

While the Nyarlathotep of the mythos simply has an alien, multifaceted mind capable of running multiple "selves" on multiple worlds, it appears that Nyarlathotep in Hands absorbs his personalities from minds he "likes" in the worlds he encounters. This power is suggested early on, by the Squiddles sharing colour and power when they touch people they're friends with. His plan, then, is to "share colour" with a First Guardian - Jack - by merging with him and making him a Mind. Though I didn't go into it, this makes sense when you think about it: Jack is the only First Guardian not loyal to their planet and/or Lord English, and so be willing to up and leave to join a hellsquid for shits. He's also probably the only one Nyar can count on being able to break, since Jack is not always that bright in a rage and can be easily controlled, like Doc Scratch did with SS and Snowman. Imagine if Nyar had merged his mind with GCat only to taken out of play by the Condesce, or created a new First Guardian and be thwarted by an unknown variable, like actual strength of will! But moreover, due to the nature of Paradox Space, Nyarlathotep's plan is successful the moment it begins, and he has already absorbed Jack! All he has to do is put it in line as he "remembers" it! The parallel to his archnemesis, English, is obvious, as both have to ensure the circumstances of their birth through redundant time travel.

Unfortunately, Jack might not be very smart, but he also isn't very easy to negotiate with after he becomes a dog. We can imagine Nyarlathotep grabbing a Beta timeline, nurturing it with his Masks... and screwing up, somewhere. You can imagine how the whole slate could be blanked in an instant, with Troll or Human society wiped out before even entering the game, or Jack being killed, or a million other factors. Suddenly he needed another beta timeline, and Lord English was running around blowing things up. Better to restart the one he has, by Scratching it. But Horrorterrors can't enter the session, they use agents instead. But rather than seduce Rose to grimdarkness time and time over (a fallacious process), Nyarlathotep secured a permanent solution by absorbing **Cetus** , who could enter the session, command the Underlings (remember, Denizens are Underlings in this universe, so this includes Echidna and her Quills) and Scratch the session whenever they needed a new Dollhouse. They could be at the Beat Mesa or Cardinal Movement before the players were even on their feet! This was a time-intensive process but Nyarlathotep can handle it: he has all the time in Paradox Space and multiple Minds to prepare the show. 

Coming at the session from all possible times, Nyarlathotep sets three Minds in charge: Cetus was set as "Hindsight" to prepare the sessions for Jack's surrender and a mind not yet created was set as "Foresight" to prepare for the battle with English, yet-to-come. Jack is put in charge of his own surrender as "Presence."

The objectives of these three explain what takes place from the players' perspective. Each are given one vote in decisions, which leads to them often doing one another's dirty work. As a result, it's probably a good idea to not look at the Mask doing the action and simply try to work out which Mind tabled the action in the first place.

  * Firstly, the **Triumvirate** works as a unit to accomplish their Prime objective. Anything that goads the kids and Jack towards one another, the kids in good shape, but not invincible, can be considered a decision of the Triumvirate as a unit. The elimination of God Tiers, for example, and all the detail work of replicating the Alpha universe. If you prefer, think of these as Nyarlathotep's own decisions, without delegation.
  * Next, imagine **Jack** in his moment of surrender. He is being thrashed to the point of death and has seen a power-boosted Denizen taken out on top of that. He is afraid, when suddenly he gets an offer of relief. He agrees, to the terms that he be allowed the chance to crush the kids. Nyarlathotep grants him this... and little else. Once the kids have been crushed and the Triumvirate dissolved, Jack will have no power over the prime body and will be little more than an infinite ammo clip for the HT. Presence's suggestions in the fic tend to be preparation for Jack's upcoming fight. He tries to kill Gamzee to avoid having to fight the Bard of Rage, and it's not until Hindsight manages to change Gamzee's powers that they both succeed in removing the Bard of Rage without breaking the session in the process. Presence unleashes the Underlings' Last Stand in hopes of chewing the kids up and points her past self at useful temporal powers to thrash Dave and Aradia... and always fails. Because Presence is a stooge and not privy to the other Minds, her plans tend to be horrible. That's just the kids overcoming the plots of their Final Boss like good video game heroes do... even if they don't know who exactly is responsible.
  * Nyarlathotep getting **Cetus** on his side probably wasn't very hard. The Denizens in the fic are cast as the final test/obstacle of the player's personal growth, and as such are constantly harping on the opposite of personal growth: "everlasting stagnation." Nyarlathotep's objective. No more change, no more Sburb, everything stays the same. No Cherub has to win their long chess game of the Birth of Space and the Crunch of Time. Nyarlathotep can become a First Guardian, kill Caliborn and the Horrorterrors can float on forever. Unfortunately for... ah... simplicity, we have to look at Cetus from the lens of a game designer.

"She's a strip of limited AI ripped from her game, just following her programmed objective. She probably doesn't even realize why she's doing it, except that The Game Demands." Cetus thinks she believes in everlasting stagnation, but her actions show the game designer's hand. She is actually there to test the players' personal growth, and even though she's out of the system, she just _can't stop doing it_. Like Kefka Palazzo's true purpose as a piece of entertainment-through-challenge in an entertainment medium, Cetus is a piece of education-through-challenge in an educating medium. She is Rose's denizen, and even though it would be easier, she cannot stop trying to make Rose jump the hoops she is supposed to jump. Her intelligence is an illusion. The Secret Strifes as an event are her responsibility. They are there to teach Rose the lessons of Sburb from the comic: you will be alone one day, your parents cannot protect you forever. Trust your friends to help you be a better person, as appropriate to your species. To earn the Ultimate Reward, you must be prepared to die for it. I threaded these lines into my own thesis, so you'll see them throughout the fic. Not that each Secret Strife went smoothly. Bro's Ghost picks up on the "lesson" before Rose does, because he's already gone through it for Dave, and sneaks it to her. Presence loses her temper. And Foresight shows Rose the future...

  * **Dargon** is a Mind born from the future*, and as a result, has objectives based on the future. Unfortunately for Nyarlathotep's original plans, that means he knows the canon outcome and knows they don't end up killing Lord English, or even helping. After all, I can't supersede canon here in a fanfic! Instead, either as a representative of the whole or a result of his relationship with Cetus, he continues the spirit of the objective, if not the word. "Everlasting Stagnation." Foresight is trying to create a new universe that will carry on, "Sburb free, to the end of time," because he knows he can't impact the whole universe like the Triumvirate thinks they can. He's gotten to like the Dollhouses and wants to continue them, and that means co-operating with Cetus to graduate the kids through the game so they can create a new world. It means cooperating with Jack to keep Lord English from finding and killing him, personally. Or worse... victorious Calliope. He and Hindsight cultivating a relationship with Rose was his idea, as was the future-showing in his Secret Strife (that is: until the Challenge against LE). Cetus is putting Rose through trials because her programming tells her to. Foresight is trying to make her win.



So the Prime mind doesn't care about the kids, Presence wants to break them, Foresight wants to save them and Hindsight thinks she wants to break them but _actually_ wants to save them because that's what she's programmed to do. Ultimately, I don't blame you for being confused. **Things That Didn't Work**.

*(If you're one of the two people that read the Fic That Must Not Be Named, Foresight was created when Nyarlathotep met himself as a child, when he drained his own colour. This means he's the extension of a boy that was not yet broken but also not yet defended by friends. This, fostered by the Prime mind that has broken his friends, leads to Foresight's utter _indifference_ towards those friends. Look, I don't want to talk about that fic any more, okay?)

* * *

FuzzyZergling also asked: 

> [W]hat exactly is Nyar's connection to the Squiddles! TV show?

Before Feferi and Rose's feud was ruined in the later arc, there was a line where Foresight remarked that Feferi's Lusus was a lot like him in that they both interacted with mortals and understood them like none of the other Horrorterrors. As a result and as a kick in the pants at Nyar for being a jerk to the other HTs in general, G'lyb sent the kids a packaged message. She couldn't tell Feferi directly or else scuttle the Dollhouse universe and force another (because the Dollhouse Troll Universe had to nearly match canon), and so she had to work in a back door. Of course, Nyar wouldn't have stood for that, and sent his own cultists to add their own touch. I imagine the real Squiddles was probably staffed by a hellish mish-mash of cultists since it was one of the only genuine sources of info from the gods that we know of in canon, but here it's just these two cults.

Dargon/Foresight, realizing that getting G'lyb's message to the kids was to his personal advantage (see above), decided to interfere directly: he voiced Plumbthroat and others, and had Hindsight voice Berryboo and others. Since he was just trying to help her, the message got across fully intact, if in reverse order. This would have been better communicated if Hindsight's arc hadn't been chewed up by a lawnmower but the hints are here and there.


	5. Postmortem & Analysis: Final Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunset and dawn.

It's been nearly seven months since the fic ended, did you know that? I don't think I could have imagined the overhead that would have been required to get the rest of this out, not just at the beginning as during the process itself, until it started to weigh down. Mostly I'm glad to be done. Seven months is a long time. Two and a half years is longer. Very long time to be in a dark cave strapped to a cat.

:33 < you'd be furprised what you can do strapped to a cat!

Thank you, woolen pest. All we're really left with now is the initial question. The question that launched this entire fic: could we manage to make a dent in the number of auspistice fics in the fandom?

:33 < not a rat's chance in alternian hell

"No."

Ash fics still tend toward nonexistence. There are a handful of stories with an ash storyline present, but with a few notable exceptions I find they tend toward the background, take that as you will. I suppose I don't mind. I've spent so much time working toward trying to hold the fic together that I haven't really been aiming toward the original objective, and I certainly can't expect good results with a failed project. If I am responsible for anything, it was the prevalence of whole-cast-on-the-meteor fics before Hussie did the same, though the practice really picked up with _Void Life_ and _Void Death_ so I can't even really take credit for that. Oh well. Influence isn't everything.

As for the rest, for life, love and the hands in holding hands, I will swallow my last drop of insecurity and leave any presumption of success and failure in the hands of the readers, as originally intended. You have the intentions, you have my take, and most importantly, you have the emaciated frame of the story. If you need any more, if you think there's something I failed to cover, or said I would cover and then forgot, or anything else you might need, you can always reach me below and we'll see what I can do about anything. I certainly owe you that much, and my thanks. You stuck around, even when it became less of a story and more a trip into my imagination, trying as it has been, for some of us more than others.

>:OO < _wash me!_

**We don't have any _soap!_**

…Ahem.

I suppose you could say there are things left to do. Jobs to find. Things to write. And I've got another fictional teenaged girl's adolescence to ruin. 

This is the last thing I have to clean up. From here the old days end and the new days begin.

Go home. There's nothing more we can do here.


End file.
